The Grumpy Strategists
by Strategic Analysis Australia
Latest episode
Grumpies go video: AI national security & copyright with a Triton…
Grumpies go video: AI national security & copyright with a Triton…
About this podcast
The Grumpy Strategists chat about defence and security issues, from an Australian perspective. We say simple things about complicated issues that help cut through the politics and careful bureaucratic talking points. Critical but constructive conversations about the big security and technology issues affecting our world. RSSVERIFY
Episodes
The newest 20 of 90 episodes
- Grumpies go video: AI national security & copyright with a Triton surveillance drone chaser · 49 min · Season 3 Episode 83Marcus and Michael broadcast this first video podcast from the Bunker, after taking measures to obscure the location (security, opacity and non-disclosure is baked in to the SAA…
- AUKUS at 5: Not Dead Yet. Don't make the rookie error its about submarines - it's about the "Geopolitical Imaginary"....and Dune.... · 54 min · Season 3 Episode 82In Episode 82, Marcus scours the garbage bins around government offices in Canberra to feed the SAA bunker's furnaces and so avoid rising energy prices as the Houthis block Red…
- The Censorship Edition: slow change accelerates in politics, war, cricket & climate. But Govt censorship just keeps rolling · 51 min · Season 3 Episode 81Marcus and Michael broadcast this edition of the Grumpy Strategists from two secure locations: Marcus kicking back birdwatching from SAA's home bunker in the Brindabellas outside…
- Australia's two "Wunderwaffen" can't both be magical: Hunter frigates and AUKUS subs · 51 min · Season 3 Episode 80The Grumpies return to SAA's bunker deep in the Brindabella Hills. It's time to take stock of the $9 billion spent so far on 3 Hunter frigates for Australia's Navy, with $18…
- UK Count Binface's Australian Connection, AUKUS August, and Lethal Wellbeing · 43 min · Season 3 Episode 79Michael calls in from Count Binface's campaign to beat Reform UK's Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election. The Grumpies ponder a Binface-type manifesto for Australia - "I will…
- AUKUS subs' temporary base is permanent again: Mr Conroy loses his trousers in Washington, startling Elbridge Colby · 53 min · Season 3 Episode 78Marcus undertakes an emergency mercy flight to Washington DC to comfort and counsel Department of War deputy Elbridge Colby, stunned by the stab in the back from America's Aussie…
- Grumpy Strategists episode 77: Those silly Canadians. Drone wars - US joins Ukraine. & Zumwalt: The Expense Continues · 43 min · Season 3 Episode 77It's a packed episode from the SAA bunker deep in the Brindabella Hills: Marcus gets into the world of high fashion with Gina Rinehart and Pauline Hanson, Michael marvels at…
- Accountability is king, but no one is responsible. The tragedy of Australian Defence leaders forced to waste their time & our money · 52 min · Season 3 Episode 76In Episode 76, the Grumpy Strategists ponder revelations of $29 billion of waste in just some of Australia's big defence projects from Minister for defence industry Pat Conroy…
- Unaccountable rises: A Defence leadership Trifecta performs at Parliament, while China shifts the ground on AUKUS · 42 min · Season 3 Episode 75Marcus and Michael each pick their three stand out takeaways from Australian Defence officials testimony about delivery and performance to the Parliament. It's hard to pick…
- America in Asia: a very different Hegesth to 2025 & regional ordering amongst disorder · 41 min · Season 3 Episode 74Marcus talks to SAA's man in Singapore, Graeme Dobell, about the dynamics and developments on show at the annual Defence ministers' gathering in Singapore's Shangri-La hotel…
- Retreat from Singapore: Richard Marles succeeds in getting all used subs from America. The new ones are rubbish. · 51 min · Season 3 Episode 73In history, a retreat from Singapore can have hairs all over it, but Richard Marles has turned that around, as the Grumpy Strategists unpack the events. At Singapore's Shangri-La…
- Australia's Collins subs life extension scandal: 10 years of failure covered up until the Auditors came - & the UK's 1st Sea Lord takes truth serum · 1 h 9 min · Season 3 Episode 72Marcus and Michael go through the scandalous revelations about 10 years of failed planning on extending the operational life of the only submarines Australia has - the 6 Collins…
- Oz Budgets: the Unhappy meet the Disappointed. Big Defence numbers get small. & the cage fight in Beijing · 54 min · Season 3 Episode 71Michael and Marcus argue furiously over the merits and messages in the Albanese Govt budget versus Opposition leader Angus Taylor's response. Only one of them is right....Then…
- Zen and the Art of Defence investment: big numbers for everyone - Episode 70 · 58 min · Season 3 Episode 70A Zen temple helps Marcus seek balance between the contradictions in Australia's defence Strategy, while Michael struggles with a noisy kettle in the bunker. Australia's new…
- The Grumpy Strategists cover Australia's new defence plan: a strategy of denial that the world has changed · 1 h 0 min · Season 3The Grumpy Strategists respond to Australia's defence minister, Richard Marles, discussing and releasing the 'new' 2026 Defence Strategy and investment plan. Marcus sees the…
- America's wartime defense budget: $1.5 trillion to deliver a military able to fight everyone - except China..... · 54 min · Season 1 Episode 68Back in the SAA Bunker deep in the Brindabellas, Marcus & Michael declare energy independence (okay, thanks to government subsidies) and ponder the details of the Trump…
- The Gulf collective defence exercise: a war no one admits to fighting · 39 min · Season 1 Episode 67Marcus calls into the Grumpy Strategists' Brindabella bunker with unwelcome news on more diesel supplies. After this disappointment, the Grumpies ponder the mystery of the Gulf…
- Our Kentucky Colonel masters deflection, the War & AUKUS sub outcomes - magical thinking meets US & UK partner realities · 53 min · Season 1 Episode 66Well, despite the great news from Energy Minister Chris Bowen that Australia faces no energy crisis other than silly unwashed Australians panicking, the Iran War has already…
- Victory in the War for Influence & Invoicing: Australia's Mandarin Advisory Complex at work in two reports · 1 h 9 min · Season 1 Episode 65President Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address warning of the US Military Industrial Complex echoes in Canberra today - but with industry and products replaced in the Canberra…
- The Iran war: Australia joins the "Coalescing of the Partly Willing" · 50 min · Season 1 Episode 64Marcus and Michael get serious about biofuel, with a novel feedstock straight from Defence's Russell Offices. They look at the rapidly expanding Iran War, with multiple US…
